A Future Ago
by Rennwood Phoenix
Summary: It's been eighteen years since the future changed for good. Deke grapples with the implications of his heritage, and his niece (or mother) relives her past life through her uncle. Sometimes, the only thing a person can do is forget.


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* * *

I curse the day he showed up.

My uncle, who loved me so deeply in my early childhood years, stayed away for half my life when he learned the truth.

Why he distanced himself so thoroughly, my parents have tried to explain. But no reason is good enough, because I finally understand.

But it wasn't my fault.

Things change all the time.

Choices are made, nothing is set in stone.

My parents made sure I understood that.

But my uncle (or whatever he was) couldn't accept the truth, for all his kindness and sincerity. His past was too painful, the memories too vivid. He wanted to protect me. (That's what my parents say.)

He taught me how to love unconditionally as a child,, and yet as soon as he was sure of my identity, he simply disappeared.

But his disappearance, I guess, wasn't very simple. His wife still visited regularly, hugging me and having tea with my parents as though nothing had changed. Their son tagged along, his features identical to his father.

A sharp pain shot through me when I saw him.

Their daughter inherited my uncle's innocence.

* * *

He showed up on my seventeenth birthday.

My mother nearly cried when she opened the door.

My father put his arm around my shoulders.

I didn't want to speak to my uncle.

I was nine when he left.

He tried to look me in the eye—to tell me how sorry he was and that people make mistakes.

I tried to bite back the sarcastic comment, but it slipped out.

Because people don't just abandon their friends. They're supposed to love them. Unconditionally.

Especially family.

* * *

His stay was longer than we expected.

Dad wondered why he didn't go back right away.

Mum said something about lost time.

My uncle took me for a walk. He tried to explain it all.

The past. The future. The childhood. The pain. The killers—backstabbers. The discoveries and years of running, hiding, killing, taking, agony.

He thought he knew his fate. He was certain of his future.

But my parents saved him.

His wife finally forgave him. He had a bright future for once.

I was only a reminder of his past. His pain.

He wasn't sure, at first, that I was the one.

I remember how he would study my actions, my mannerisms, trying to remember accurately.

He knew my birthday.

Didn't matter.

Times were different—why would I be the same?

But my name was the same. My hair, he said, was uniquely similar. My eyes he would never forget.

I didn't know what to think.

Strangeness was a reality of my life since birth. All my uncles and aunts had stories to tell about the apocalypse. Robots. Psychopaths. Something called a framework. (Dad's hand shook at that.)

My uncle stopped me at a large tree.

Did I understand any of it?

Of course.

Was I alright?

No. I was accustomed to strangeness, yes, but . . .

He wished he had never told me.

It was a strange kind of irony. He had gone through so much, tried to forget it all. And yet here I was standing with him, a living, breathing embodiment of all he'd lost.

I thought he loved me. Thought he would be there for me.

He did love me. Like a daughter.

(Roles were reversed.)

He would be there for me, he just had to step away for a while.

We walked back, he admired the countryside. I raised my eyes to the vast blue canopy and wondered why my parents would name me after something so beautifully mysterious.

He left the next day.

Mum said to give him time. He's processing a lot.

And I wasn't?

It wasn't the same. I knew that.

(I never lived that life, and I never would.)

* * *

Four years passed, and I finally saw him again.

My parents had been called in to consult, and they wanted me there.

(I guess my PhD in physics was worth something.)

The director had retired long ago, and my aunt had taken his place.

 _He,_ of course, was her right hand.

There was a new substance, they said.

Something to do with blue aliens.

Everyone became uncomfortable.

I had three aunts present. Only one uncle.

He kept glancing my way, examining my large, swollen, expecting belly.

After the brief, he pulled me aside.

He wanted the father's name.

How was that any kind of a welcome? Flying halfway around the world for that.

Dad rescued me. Said he needed me in the lab.

I wondered if my uncle had gone senile.

Dad said he'd been under too much stress for his age.

Should have thought of that before agreeing to assist his wife.

* * *

When my son was two, my uncle died.

I hadn't even said goodbye.

A heart attack, they said.

Too much stress in his life.

He went too young.

What a tragedy, they said.

But only I knew the truth.

He'd always liked guns.

* * *

I finally found the note he left.

He wanted to give it to me two years ago. But it wasn't right. He didn't want to ruin my relationship with my son.

He loved me, he wrote. Always had. It wasn't my fault. But he wanted to carve out his own path. There was too much heartbreak in his life. He knew what happened when he loved me the last time. (A lifetime ago.) For all his joy and contentment with his wife and children, he and I shared a strange, terrifying, wonderful bond. He didn't want anything to happen to me because of him.

He reminded me that the steps I took from here on didn't have to be big, they just had to take me in the right direction.

(Maybe some things were inevitable.)

* * *

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End file.
